South Africa Gray Matter

A reprieve for illegal residents

Since the government of State President P.W. Botha formally repealed its pass laws two years ago, South Africa's black workers have been free to go anywhere in the country in search of work. There is a hitch: they are still expected to comply with the Group Areas Act, an apartheid law that compels them to live in segregated nonwhite homelands and townships. For many, the only recourse has been to leave the townships and rent housing from white owners in the cities or erect makeshift shacks on idle farmland, roadsides and in parks and / gardens. The result: as many as...